The Great Purge

I will be the first to admit that I probably know more "bros" than the majority of people on this site, and as such, my Facebook has been blazing all day with Daft Punk this, Swedish House that, etc. All of them, and I do mean all of them, are selling their tickets and are furious, and are pretending they know about music to claim the lineup is "irrelevant" and "garbage".

So the question I'm wondering is this. There is going to be a giant exodus of fairweather party fans, a "great purge", if you will. I think this is going to make the crowd amazing. I even think the Sahara is going to be a blast. The new attendees that are drawn to this type of lineup are going to absolutely love this festival. However, are there enough of them to actually sustain two weekends, and provide for a solid presale next year? Even if the lineup sells out, the secondary market of people who snagged up presale tickets hoping for SHM redux is going to be pretty sizable...are there really two weekends worth of people that dig this enough to drop the cash on it? I'm wondering if Weekend 2 will be sparse.

I hope not, because I think the crowd is going to be amazing and I want to see Coachella succeed here so we can continue to have these types of lineups...maybe without RHCP next time, hah.

Re: The Great Purge

I think the pre-sale for 2014 will definitely move slower than for this year, but I have a feeling that the lineup next year will probably contain a Daft Punk/Bjork/The Knife type combo and really blow even the mainstream audience away with a Justin Timberlake/Outkast/Beyonce type act. I would think the festival still sells out post-lineup drop. This year, the second weekend may indeed be a little lighter, but not drastically so.

Personally, I look forward to this extremely diverse line-up, the lack of a Jack Johnson/Kaskade/AVICII/KOL, and the audience those acts bring. I'm excited to listen to new artists and do some purging of my own to albums I have played out over the last year or so. My group has discussed this topic since the drop and agree with you that the crowd might feel very different compared to the last couple of years which is probably a good thing. Just like Coachella to keep us guessing and change it up!

Re: The Great Purge

I wouldn't call myself a veteran, but I've attended since 2009, and have slowly seen the creep toward more popular acts in the last few years. I really like the push this year toward a higher quality undercard with more acts that appeal to people with a indie sensibility about music. It seemed like the early Coachellas were more about curating this type of lineup, and its great to seem them get back to that. Also, as a Britpop geek, I'm also beyond loving that Blur and the Roses are co-headlining. Maybe next year they can get Sleeper to reunite.

Originally Posted by hawkingvsreeve

Perhaps if you had spent more time planning your sets out and less time playing slutty Indian this wouldn't be so difficult for you.

Re: The Great Purge

The lineup hugely features Red Hot Chili Peppers and Social Distortion. To that i had the opposite reaction in that I believe those two names alone will surely attract thousands of total assholes. Expect many of old-gen bros.

Re: The Great Purge

Originally Posted by Drinkey McDrinkerstein

The lineup hugely features Red Hot Chili Peppers and Social Distortion. To that i had the opposite reaction in that I believe those two names alone will surely attract thousands of total assholes. Expect many of old-gen bros.

Re: The Great Purge

To be fair, I am less annoyed by bro "behavior", of which I saw fairly little that actually bothered me last year, and more by the attitude of "It's my first year! What the fuck is all this weird shit, let's have G.O.O.D. Music headline!". I'd be frustrated if I was a festival organizer who spent all year fighting to get At the Drive In, Mangum, Godspeed, and Company Flow to show up, only to realize half my crowd thought Calvin Harris was the most fun. Which is why I'm not entirely surprised they picked this year to headline two 90s era Brit-Pop bands and throw a bunch of deep house in the Sahara. I know some people coming for their first year who have no business coming to any music festival outside of maybe EDC. They are great people, I'm not judging based on musical taste, they just don't like music and concerts and haven't quite put together that Coachella is, at it's core, live music for 10 hours a day. When they saw the lineup, they were really let down, which I think is the canary in the coal mine that maybe music festivals aren't their thing.

Re: The Great Purge

Originally Posted by Drinkey McDrinkerstein

The lineup hugely features Red Hot Chili Peppers and Social Distortion. To that i had the opposite reaction in that I believe those two names alone will surely attract thousands of total assholes. Expect many of old-gen bros.

I find it interesting that these days Mike Ness and Social D's fans are associated with so called "bros" when in high school he was the one getting in fights with the jocks and "bros" of his day. And Red Hot Chili Peppers fans are assholes? I've been to a Red Hot Chili Peppers show, and you see just about every walk of life and type of person.

Re: The Great Purge

Originally Posted by travelfan

I know some people coming for their first year who have no business coming to any music festival outside of maybe EDC. They are great people, I'm not judging based on musical taste, they just don't like music and concerts and haven't quite put together that Coachella is, at it's core, live music for 10 hours a day. When they saw the lineup, they were really let down, which I think is the canary in the coal mine that maybe music festivals aren't their thing.

How can you say that they "don't like music and concerts"? I make the same kind of judgements myself, but I recognize that they may not be valid and may be in fact quite insulting to these people.

Originally Posted by TomAz

Hey here's an idea. You know those people who are desperately poor, down on their luck, uneducated, abused, and generally ill-equipped for life? Let's make fun of them.

Re: The Great Purge

How can you say that they "don't like music and concerts"? I make the same kind of judgements myself, but I recognize that they may not be valid and may be in fact quite insulting to these people.

...because they don't like music or concerts. At most they listen to the radio, and maybe go to one concert every year, but probably more like one every other year. Like I said, I know them, they are friends of mine and are great people, they just aren't into music and are having reservations now that they've seen the lineup.

Re: The Great Purge

Originally Posted by RobertGoulet

And Red Hot Chili Peppers fans are assholes? I've been to a Red Hot Chili Peppers show, and you see just about every walk of life and type of person.

Yeah, this. I saw RHCP on their current tour, and the crowd was a really varied mix (everything from college kids, to parents with children, and older folks), all well behaved and all very happy to be there. That said, I'm not exactly excited about seeing the Chili Peppers at Coachella.